Merchants, advertisers, and other entities often have a desire to develop more effective and more efficient methods of advertising and reaching out to consumers. Along with developing methods for reaching consumers, these entities are often also concerned with evaluating the success or failure of such methods. By identifying the effect that an advertising campaign has on consumers, an advertiser can better develop future campaigns that have an even greater positive effect on consumers. Thus, it is of interest to these entities to utilize more efficient and more effective methods for evaluating the success of a campaign.
However, many methods for measuring advertising effectiveness often require participation of consumers directly, such as surveys and polls. In addition to requiring consumer participation, there is also a possibility that the information provided by the consumers may be inaccurate or fabricated, especially if the survey or poll is anonymous. Some entities may analyze revenue or consumer activity for a merchant following an advertising campaign. However, such analysis may not be directly correlated to a specific campaign, the identification of consumers who were exposed to an advertisement and/or participated in a campaign may be difficult, and detailed information regarding effectiveness as to different groups of consumers (e.g., based on demographics) may also be unavailable. In addition, many consumers may also be concerned for personal privacy and security, and therefore resistant to detailed information regarding their shopping behavior being obtained and/or analyzed.
One method that has been designed to measure the effectiveness of an advertisement, while still maintaining consumer privacy and security, is described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2013/0024274, entitled “Method and System for Measuring Advertising Effectiveness Using Microsegments,” filed on Apr. 3, 2012, to Curtis Villars, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. This method utilizes microsegments to maintain consumer privacy, while also providing analysis of advertising effectiveness for a specific demographic based on each individual microsegment. In some instances, a microsegment that corresponds to a control group that is not exposed to an advertisement may be identified. However, by the control group being a separate microsegment, the method is unable to identify a control group of consumers that directly correspond to consumers in a campaign group, and thus may provide results that are inaccurate.
The identification of a control group of consumers that are not participants in a campaign, yet directly correspond to a group of consumers that do participate in the campaign, may yield more accurate, and therefore more effective, results regarding advertising effectiveness. Such data may provide a detailed look at the effect of an advertisement on a very specific type of consumer, while still maintaining a high level of privacy and security for the consumers. Thus, there is a need for a technical solution to identify a control group of consumers for campaign measurements that does not sacrifice the personal privacy and security of consumers.